Bamboo blow pipe & dart.

Just for a little fun I did a little experiment today and made a little blowpipe and dart from Bamboo.

I cleared the pith from the center of the bamboo using a 3mm brass rod,then smoothed the ends with sand paper.
At the end I was going to use to blow through I wrapped it with a leather strip held in place with pine resin and at the other end I wrapped some jute twine and then also coated that with resin.

The dart was made from a split piece of bamboo which I the split a fine length no thicker that 2mm in diameter,I sanded one end into a fine point and then wrapped some cotton wool around the other end.

I then tested the blow gun out by firing it at the ironing board which hangs from the back of a cupboard door,don't tell the Wife
It stuck in first time.
I decided to put a picture on the ironing board and see how consistent I was from about 15 feet,not to bad really as you will see from the holes in the picture.

The blow gun is only 12" long and fires really well up to 25ft,if I had made it longer I am sure it would have been accurate at a much longer distance.

So all I need now it a poison dart frog and I am in business,only kidding ,but it just goes to show how easy it is to make a blowgun and what a versatile plant bamboo really is.

When I was a kid, I had one of the aluminum ones that seem to always be advertised in the back of survival magazines. I was accurate as all get out. Could nail any can placed up to 50 feet in front of me (maybe closer to 30 ft..... I was kid and everything seems longer).

I do believe they have utility. I know of at least a few dead birds that could (or not) attest to that.

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When we were kids, we would take a section of 1/2" conduit about four feet long and use it for a blowgun. We would make the darts from nails or pieces of brazing rod sharpened with a paper cone around them secured with masking tape. These were absolutely deadly! I cannot begin to count the squirrels and birds that we harvested with these little weapons and never used any poison. My ex-father-in-law made one on a rifle stock that used propane and an igniter to fire it that used the same darts and conduit for a barrel with a simple bolt-action that he made from stuff lying around the shop.
I guess my point is that sure you can make them from stuff that grows in the bush but do not discount the use of industrial waste and garbage to fabricate survival weapons with. Garbage is easier to locate than bamboo in many environments and these are nifty little weapons for shooting track-rabbits with in a stealthy manner.

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Darts can be made from drywall screws and milk jug plastic. Heat the plastic until it's soft and the use a plum bob to form a cone by sticking it into the softened plastic. Screw the drywall screw into the end of the cone and you have a easily made dart.

Makes me wish our bamboo plant that we got at a local nursery which was supposed to be the most cold hardy(Phyllostachs nuda I believe) hadn't died. It wasn't our care though, the nursery's stock of it all died too. For poison, why not find Amanita mushrooms(or similarly poisonous variety), make a 'tea' out of them and use that as a poison? Just not for hunting obviously, don't wanna poison the meat.

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A friend of mine taught me to do much the same you did, only using canes. I've got a more modern gun now, (from cold steel actually) but I still know how to take a cane pole and turn it into a dart gun. It's good knowledge to have, IMO.

And they're fun as all get out to play with, always a + with kids when you're trying to teach them skills.

I have never been much of a hunter but I am a knife throwing and blow dart enthusiast. I have a 4 foot .50 cal aluminum blow gun with a variety of darts. I can easily hit a 2 inch circle from 25 feet. (Most of time I can hit the circle when it is moving on my fan blades as well.) I became interested in survival techniques somewhat recently and got in my mind that I was going to try hunting around my property. I live downtown in a neighborhood of my state's capital, by the way it's not prime hunting ground. I watched videos of squirrel cleaning and got all my equipment together.(My wife thought I had lost my mind.) I was hitting the squirrels but the darts were barely phasing them. As soon as I hit the squirrel it would hightail it away from me. I tracked one unlucky rodent through several neighbors yards and 3 darts sunk in it (2 in the lungs and one in the rear) and it was still agile as ever. I have yet to catch my squirrel dinner. I even looked up a delicious recipe for squavy, squirrel gravy.

A bamboo blow gun is cute but would be of little practical use. I applaud the inventiveness. I am still set on using blowguns as my prime method of hunting small game. As for poisons: nicotine can be distilled from cigs or even better uncut chewing tobacco boiled down and wiped onto the barb. Hot sauces with capcasin will also work (and probably even start seasoning before the critter even dies). If you want to get serious, get yourself a p-dart. They are one of the few tranq darts I can find for blowgun and available to the public. They are pricy but contain a charge to forcefully inject a substance (like hotsauce or nicotine).

As for me I am upgrading the caliber on my blowgun to .625 and going back to the drawing board. By the way, blow darts are extremely cheap and compact. A pack of 100 darts can fit in an altoid box and costs under 10 bucks. The shorter guns (18") are pretty easy to fit in a trail pack and still pack a punch. Though you do lose some accuracy. It is sort of difficult to get squirrels to come into your 20 foot bubble and take a seat unless you have a bird feeder.

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I used blowguns as a kid. Longer tube are faster and more accurate, and longer darts have more penetration. And small scale PVC rigid tubing or 1/2" schedule 40 plumbing PVC, does an impressive job. the plastic tops for felt (tar paper) roofing nails fit well, and hold up along time, they can be fitted easily with a belt or disc sander to match the bore. I also used to sharpen the sides of the dart so it would cut, not just poke. I use a slingshot these days.

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